Charge-card activated systems provide a service, such as communications, banking, product dispensing, or the like, for a customer. Typically, the customer receives the charge-card activated service through the aid of an automated machine which is equipped with a charge-card reader. The customer must first cause a charge-card to be read by the machine. Numerous conventional charge-cards, including credit, banking and debit cards, are available to the public for use in connection with such charge-card activated services. After reading the charge-card, the system provides the service and debits the customer's charge-card account to reflect charges for the service and/or dispensed product.
In order for the customer to responsibly monitor and control the use of the customer's charge-card accounts, the customer must maintain records of transactions that affect such accounts. Consequently, some charge-card activated systems incorporate a printing device located near the charge-card reader. Such a system typically generates a written receipt, or transaction record, using the printing device. The system presents this receipt to the customer for the customer's use.
While the incorporation of a printer in a charge-card activated system attempts to serve customer needs regarding the monitoring and control of the customer's charge-card accounts, it suffers from many technical drawbacks. For example, the incorporation of a printing device at a remote terminal increases the expense of such a remote terminal. Since a charge-card activated system typically includes a multiplicity of remote terminals, the expense of equipping all remote terminals with a printer makes such a system excessively expensive. In addition, such printer-equipped remote terminals are, in some applications, undesirably large and heavy. Moreover, the printer is typically a low-reliability component of a remote terminal, and the printer significantly deteriorates overall remote terminal reliability.
In addition to the technical problems associated with locating printers in remote terminals, such printers do not completely serve the customer's needs with respect to monitoring and controlling charge-card accounts. The receipt presented to the customer at the remote terminal is typically saved in the customer's personal effects, transported to a storage place where the customer typically keeps like records and receipts, then moved from such personal effects to the storage place. This procedure often breaks down, and such receipts occasionally fail to be placed in storage. Consequently, the customer has difficulty in monitoring and controlling the customer's charge-card accounts when such charge-card activated systems are used.
Due to the above-mentioned problems with locating a printer at a remote terminal, some charge-card activated systems simply refrain from locating a printer at the remote terminal. One example of such a system is an in-flight telephone service system, offered under the servicemark "Airfone" by GTE Airfone Incorporated of Oak Brook, Ill. This system uses charge-card-reader-equipped telephone instruments located within commercial aircraft cabins for remote terminals. In this system, a written statement is periodically mailed to the customer from a central location. This statement itemizes the customer's activity with the service and may be used by the customer to monitor and control the customer's charge-card accounts.
Although the periodic statement technique for providing the customer a written receipt solves many of the above-discussed problems, it nevertheless suffers from its own drawbacks. For example, the customer must wait for up to two months or more to receive a receipt. This delay can be intolerable to those who must complete corporate travel expense records soon after making a business trip and those who frequently utilize such a service so that they cannot recall specific uses after such a delay. In addition, the provided receipt typically omits the type of detail which is required to properly maintain corporate expense records and to permit the customer to recall specific uses of the service.
Consequently, a need exists for a system and method for generating a written receipt for the use of a charge-card activated service so that the written receipt is not presented to the customer at a remote terminal but is presented to the customer soon after use of the service and at a location convenient to the customer.